First published in a slightly modified form ‘Design to consumer: I’m not sure we’ve met?’ in Business Standard, 18 March, in Deep Design, a fortnightly column by Itu Chaudhuri.
Brand
Hidden In Plain View: Physique
First published in a slightly modified form ‘Physique’ in Business Standard, 17 November, in Deep Design, a fortnightly column by Itu Chaudhuri.
Brands place a premium on attention, firing images and words shaped into messages to inform and persuade. Indeed, we live amidst a war for our attention, an exquisitely perishable wisp that lives in the now.
The Currency of Design
First published in a slightly modified form ‘The Currency of Design’ in Business Standard, 19 November, in Deep Design, a fortnightly column by Itu Chaudhuri.
“I refuse to add to the chorus,” said DOPE, as the the Designer Of Practically Everything was known to his colleagues, “dissing the Rs 2000 note’s design. Instead, let’s treat it as an occasion to ask explore what design means.”
Brand Is UX, Or Something Like That
First published in a slightly modified form ‘Brand Is UX, Or Something Like That’ in Business Standard, 5 November, in Deep Design, a fortnightly column by Itu Chaudhuri.
“The 20th century was the Age of advertising,“ said the Undisputed Strategic Panjandrum, known with awe as USP, “right up to the Great Shift or the digitisation of everything.”
Nobel, Dylan and the twilight of authority
First published in a slightly modified form ‘Nobel, Dylan and the twilight of authority’ in Business Standard, 22 October, in Deep Design, a fortnightly column by Itu Chaudhuri.
“The Nobel Committee has won the Bob Dylan Prize,” announced the Always Contrarian Everyman, or ACE, a lapsed academic I’d been introduced to by mutual friends, to help with some research on communications planning.
University Logos: What’s Changed And Why It Matters
First published in a slightly modified form ‘Branding, to a degree’ in Business Standard, 10 September, in Deep Design, a fortnightly column by Itu Chaudhuri.
In India, the notion of the brand is both nascent and spreading at a gallop. States, NGOs, government bodies, spiritual leaders, cricket teams, and other once-unlikely entities are starting to receive marketing attention, so the brand is never far behind. It’s the new orthodoxy.
The Three Ages of Olympic Logos
First published in a slightly modified form in Business Standard, 13 August, in Deep Design, a fortnightly column by Itu Chaudhuri.
Everyone loves a new, public logo. It’s a polarising icon, and comments are free. So it is with Olympic logos. Deep Design seeks not to praise or bury them, but to discover the meaning interred into their bones.
We, the Undersigned
“The trouble with you creative fellows,” said VSOP (Very Superior Old Person), “is that you think brand only means advertising, or synthesising emotions to sell your widgets.”
I’d sought advice on Brand India for an article, and sat across chutney sandwiches and coffee in the understated lounge of the lushly landscaped International Information Centre. I protested that no, I didn’t think so, and wasn’t in advertising. But VSOP, a retired bureaucrat of Great Standing, and known to be “an acquired taste”, was in spate.